How will drought evolve in global arid zones under different future emission scenarios?

Global aridity zones. Evaluating drought under the impact of climate change is crucial for ensuring sustainable development and ecological security, especially in global arid zones where the environment is vulnerable to global warming. However, there are large uncertainties in evaluating the future drought risk of arid zones due to uncertainties within climate projections and the use drought-related indices that may not be appropriate for all assessments. Therefore, under the precondition of bias correction applied to CMIP6 data, the drought detection capability of drought indices calculated from multimodel ensemble was evaluated. Based on the drought index with the strongest detection capability and the Reliability-Resilience-Vulnerability (RRV) framework, the future drought risk in global arid zones were predicted. Among the drought indices calculated from CMIP6 historical simulations, SPEI offered the best representation of drought patterns. According to the CMIP6 future projections, SSP1–2.6 can effectively mitigate the impact of future drought risk compared with the historical period. In scenarios with higher emissions, the equatorial to northern latitude 30° region will experience more severe drought. For SSP5–8.5, the areas in the arid zones where drought risk deteriorates significantly are several times larger than in other scenarios. To mitigate drought risks, most nations should support a greener, low-emission approach in line with sustainable development goals, reducing the risk of drought-related damage. [Display omitted] •Compared to SPI and PDSI, SPEI calculated by CMIP6 exhibits the strongest drought detection capability.•Except for SSP1-2.6, all other scenarios demonstrate varying degrees of drought deterioration.•Under SSP1-2.6, drought reliability, resilience, and vulnerability have improved compared to historical.•Drought worsens significantly under SSP5-8.5, particularly in AZ-3 from the equator to 30°N latitude.